Should `tag rename` advance `updated` on every referencing document

Gap: issue-9ed4905e0db8 Blocking: no · Rank: 15 · Answered: 2026-07-28 Authority: repo maintainer (directed the work; the question was never answered separately, so the recorded assumption was acted on)

Question¶

Should tag rename advance updated on every referencing document? It resets the staleness clock for any document without an explicit verified date.

What the system does today¶

tag_service.py:77/99 set updated = today; stale_reference_date() falls back to updated (document.py:73-75). A classification edit makes overdue documents look freshly reviewed.

Proposed answer¶

Do not advance updated for edits that change no content; or measure staleness from verified only, treating never-verified docs as stale from created.

Why it matters¶

adr-bd7c4f3c5764 argues staleness must be honest human re-verification; a bulk administrative edit silently forges it.

Answer¶

No — it was unintended, and the reset is gone. tag rename and tag rm --force rewrite the classification without advancing updated, matching check --fix and delete --force. The alternative proposal (measure staleness from verified only) was rejected: it would mark every never-verified document stale from created, turning the warning on for the whole corpus on adoption — issue-9cb85759076d's failure mode. See issue-9ed4905e0db8.

---

Migrated from the discovery question queue (Q-015); the queue itself now lives in this store.